~Benjamin Franklin
So, the squandering of time is not a modern affliction. Yesterday's post seemed to really resonate with a number of people so I though I'd continue the topic today.
I love the internet. So much information, so little time; but I often find that I've frittered away far too many hours. Now I'm working on making better use of my time while still enjoying the internet. One tool I've decided to enlist in my quest for efficiency is Google Reader. There are many that I like to read but it can be time consuming. And it's especially time consuming when I visit each blog and discover they haven't been updated. With Google Reader, you subscribe to your favorite blogs and can read all the new posts in one place. You can peruse the titles and decide whether or not you want to read the posts. It's kind of like one stop shopping.
Another thing I love is my ipod, which I also use to focus my time and energy. Aside from the obvious use for an ipod - listening to music - the ipod offers a variety of entertainment options. For book lovers, iTunes offers audio book downloads. If you're not inclined to spend money on audio books, you can always get books at your public library and upload them to your ipod. iTunes also offers a variety of free podcasts that can be entertaining and/or educational. Personally, I like to listen to Coffee Break French, a great podcast to help me with my French studies. The reason I'm mentioning my ipod in this post is that I just cannot sit still while listening; I must be doing something. Unlike a television show (or even a book), I'm not glued to the sofa. On the contrary, while listening to an audio book, I can be doing household chores or running errands. A great use of my time.
Recently I began to look at the emails that arrive in my inbox. It occured to me that many are advertisements from sites where I've made purchases in the past. I don't really want the updates, I don't want to know about the specials. For a long time, I just put up with them and would go through and delete them. Now, however, I'm taking a little bit of extra time to unsubscribe; it's been well worth having a cleaner inbox. Unsubscribing is very easy. Just go to the bottom of the email and you'll usually find a link that says, "Unsubscribe." Simple.
One blog that I've found helpful for time management and goal setting is Zen Habits by Leo Babauta. This blog often contains little gems on simplifying and enjoying life to it's fullest. (Of course I now read Zen Habits through Google Reader.)
If you have any tips for eliminating time bandits from your life, I'd love to hear about them.
2 comments:
You'll love Google Reader. I've been reading blogs via a blog reader almost since I started reading blogs to begin with. As you say, it's a huge time saver. One thing I've done is to divide the blogs I read into categories, including "Top Priority". If I get behind in reading, I can focus on these (and yes, yours is in that group) and mark the others as "read".
Deanna - thanks for the tip (and for reading my blog)!
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